Jezibel
=Appearance= “At one side of the tavern a girl was dancing on the table, her scarlet silks swirling sensuously through the smoke-filled air as she writhed and spun, their gilded sequins flashing in the torchlight. Brazen castanets on her fingertips clashed and rang in an intricate syncopated rhythm, interweaving with that of her bare feet on the coin-strewn tabletop. She was tall and long of limb, with the lithe muscles of a dancer and the buxom build of a pleasure slave. Her hair was as black as polished jet, thrown carelessly back from a face that suggested aristocratic Stygian blood ran in her veins, perhaps mixed with Shemite, yet her skin was unusually pale for one of those races, the color of desert sand. Gazing into the eyes of one of the men clustered about the table — the last to have thrown silver onto it — she smiled seductively, and parted her glistening red lips with a low moan as she slowly unwound a sequined band of red silk from around her tanned belly, her hips grinding rhythmically to the ringing of the castanets. Her arms rose, swaying, above her head, the silken strip twining around her wrists to playfully bind them one to another; yet the grinding of her hips and the trapped but lust-ridden look on he face made clear the pleasures a red-blooded man could experience had he bound her so in his seraglio.” =Personality= Jezibel is something of a contradiction. On one hand, she is a happy-go-lucky tavern girl, fun-loving, uninhibited, and usually horny, with no body modesty; yet she is also a voracious reader, an intellectual with a deep curiosity about magic and the world around her, and a bad habit of slipping into lecture mode to share her knowledge — even sometimes at the most inappropriate moments. To her friends and those she likes, she is kindly, loyal, concerned, and affectionate, if sometimes teasing; to those she dislikes or just cares nothing for, she is completely amoral, and can set demons on them and burn them to death without a qualm. Her favorite activities include dancing, sex, having fun, magic, studying the occult, summoning succubi and incubi, and having fun with them after she’s summoned them. She usually dresses in skimpy or revealing clothing, often of scarlet silk, though she is also completely at ease naked. Her favorite foods are dates, almonds, candied fruit, coconut, and spiced chicken, and she likes to drink pomegranate juice and spiced wine. She is interested in sewing and jewelry-making. Her preferred weapon is bolts of flame. On the pillows, she has a great deal of enthusiasm and stamina, is open to almost anything, and equally enjoys the company of men and women — and incubi, and succubi, and indeed pretty-much anything else (short of the undead). =History= Jezibel’s history is not widely known — she sees no point in advertising her continued existence to her enemies. The most she is likely to tell anyone other than her most trusted friends is that her old Master, who trained her in magic and the Arts of Derketo, is now dead, and since then she has made her living as a tavern dancer and harlot. Her true history is as follows: Jezibel’s mother, Belit (no relation to the famous pirate of the same name), was a Stygian of the aristocratic caste, a member of a minor family. Like many of that caste, her family was of mixed descent, having some Shemite blood, and even still keeping a few Shemite traditions, such as in the naming of girls. The family was unlucky in one of the many intrigues that seethe in Stygian aristocratic society. Belit, being then young and pretty, suffered a less dreadful fate than most of the rest of the family, and found herself a drugged pleasure slave in the lotus-scented gardens of one of the Stygian nobility. How much time she spent there she never knew — what little of it she could later recount to Jezibel were a fever dream of ecstasies, agonies, tedium, beauties and horrors beyond easy description. Presumably she eventually ceased to be diverting, as she finally awoke in the alleys of Khemi, naked, shaking with drug cravings, and pregnant. Being still fairly good-looking, she fell into a life of harlotry, catering mainly to the more sadistic class of patrons, as her time in the gardens had instilled in her a deep-seated need to be dominated and abused. Jezibel grew up on the streets of Khemi and in her mother’s small 2-room apartment, sleeping in a small curtained alcove off the cramped back room that was used for living and cooking. She would help her mother dress and apply her makeup before she walked the streets. By day her mother would bring back sailors and merchants from many lands, and by night cruel-faced Stygian aristocrats and mages, to the cloth-draped and chain-hung front room where she entertained. Jezibel was used to the sounds of moaning and the smack of whips against flesh that followed, and after the customer had left would spread salve on her mother’s welts. As Jezibel grew up, her mother aged and her remaining beauty withered, and by the time Jezibel was nine it was growing hard for them to make ends meet, and Belit and her daughter often went hungry. One day, Jezibel caught the eye of one of her mother’s occasional customers, a mage by the name of Amhotep who was visiting from Luxor. On a whim, he tested Jezibel, showing her the words and gesture of a simple charm, and she repeated it, soon laughing with glee when a flame sprang from her fingertip. Amhotep, impressed, went to her mother and offered to buy her for a large sum, as an indentured servant, and to train her as an apprentice, and feed and clothe her while she remained under his roof. Belit, while torn to lose her daughter, saw this as the best way to ensure that she and Jezibel did not starve, and for Jezibel to learn a skill that could support her past her youth, and so signed the contract and accepted the proffered gold. Jezibel accompanied Amhotep back to his house in Luxor. Amhotep turned out to be a demonologist, and in between having Jezibel sweep his sanctum, grind his herbs, dust his grimoires, and scrub the blood from his sacrificial altar, he did indeed feed her, clothe her (albeit often scantily), teach her to read and write a number of languages, and train her in the summoning of demons, fire, and lightning. He also, as Jezibel grew up, became her Master in another sense: her duties came to include not only being his submissive pleasure slave, but also the plaything of some of his more humanoid demons and demonesses. It amused Amhotep to lecture and grill Jezibel on arcane matters while she was bound and one of his succubi was abusing her — he claimed that a skilled mage should be able to concentrate on arcane minutiae even while under pressure. In addition to teaching Jezibel submission, he sent her out to the nearby Temple of Derketo for lessons in erotic dancing and how to more skillfully pleasure men, women, and indeed other beings. Jezibel was happier with this arrangement than many might imagine. She loved the study of magic and other arcane matters — her curiosity and love of learning was deep and abiding — and she delighted in the rush of flames, the crack of lightning, and the sullen submission of summoned demons. While her Master was neither young nor handsome, he was devoted, encouraging, thorough, demanding, skilled, ingenious both in his cruelties and in wringing pleasure from her young body, and she gave him her love. She also loved attending the Temple of Derketo, the beauty of the singing and the lotus gardens and the water-lily pools, but most of all she loved the dancing and the growing power over her Master’s desire for her that her skill in dancing gave her. Slowly she came to struggle against her Master, seeking to best him in scholarship, magical skill, to exceed his — already high — expectations of her abilities, and also to best him in the bedroom, to englamor him with her dancing and her beauty and her submission to his needs and his demon’s whims, and so become the Mistress in turn. She never fully succeeded, but the challenge, and her few minor victories, thrilled her. When Jezibel was about 20, her Master Amhotep became involved in a disagreement with another Stygian mage, which grew into a feud with a group of mages, rumored to be allied with the Black Ring of Thoth-Amon. This ended with Amhotep slain in his bed, his corpse dried and shrunken as if by long years in the winds of the desert and a hole torn in his chest where his heart had been. Jezibel, awakened by the sounds of her Master’s shutters being ripped from their hinges, went to investigate once the screams had stopped, took one look at the corpse and fled her ex-Master’s tower, pausing only to grab her hand-copied grimoire, a knife, and a fistful of coins. Jezibel made her way back to Khemi, supporting herself by dancing and harlotry in taverns, and defending herself when necessary with her sorcerous skills. There she searched for her mother, eventually discovering that she had died long before, a few years after she had sold Jezibel, in a drugged stupor, having squandered the gold on lotus and poppies. Jezibel stayed in Khemi, taking up the life of a tavern dancer and harlot by night, and using the proceeds to support herself and to continue her studies in demonology by day. She also became a regular attendee of the local temple of Derketo, where in exchange for her donations she continued her training in dancing and the arts of pleasure, and enthusiastically participates in their seasonal festivals. A couple of years later, Jezibel had the misfortune to be captured by a slaver allied with Thoth-Amon who had drugged her wine. She does not know whether this was happenstance, or related to her old Master’s feud. She was branded, ensorceled, and shipped out of Khemi on a slave ship. Somewhere off the Barachan Isles, the ship was attacked and sank, and the next morning she awoke, washed up on the shore of Tortage. Since her return from her adventures in Tortage, she was associated for a while with a Villa of courtesans based in the Purple Lotus Swamp, and has now joined a loose community of pleasure-loving women based at some hot-springs in the wilds of Cimmera. She has traveled widely across Hyboria, though she still most often plies her trade in the taverns of Khemi. Her studies in demonology and sorcery have also been proceeding, and she has become something of an expert in summoning a wide variety of different forms of sex demon, as well as a pyromancer of moderate skill. Her favorite tavern is the Serpent's Head in Khemi, and she can often be found dancing and whoring there late at night, for whoever has crossed her palm with a few silver.